Has Buc-ee’s found a site for its 1st NC store? Read about the latest plans here
Texas-based Buc-ee’s is eyeing a different exit off Interstates 85/40 for its popular travel plaza and gas station destinations after being spurned by Orange County in 2021.
The company has filed plans for a 75,440-square-foot store with up to 120 gas pumps and eight diesel exhaust fluid pumps, which can be used in some cars, but also delivery trucks, tractor-trailer trucks and recreational vehicles.
Buc-ee’s usually does not serve 18-wheelers, however.
The Alamance News first reported Buc-ee’s’ plans for the 32.5-acre site at 1447 Trollingwood-Hawfields Road on Wednesday. The planned site is part of the 1,200-acre N.C. Commerce Park.
If approved, perhaps by this fall, major improvements are expected to surrounding roads, including highway ramps and the I-40/85 bridge. A traffic study submitted to Mebane estimated up to 800 vehicles could visit the travel center during peak weekday hours and up to 1,200 on the weekends.
Mebane, Graham and Alamance County have an agreement for the park, which gives each a share of tax revenues and input into water and sewer decisions. Existing tenants include Walmart, Prescient, Cambro and Lidl.
The I-40/85 exit is located between N.C. 119 in Mebane and Jimmie Kerr Road in Haw River, about nine miles west of the Mt. Willing Road site in Efland, where the company previously tried to build its first North Carolina store.
The 2021 plan for Orange County’s 104-acre site would have included up to 400,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and offices. It was expected to create 200 full-time jobs and up to $1 million in local property and sales tax revenues in the first phase.
Hundreds of Orange County residents and the county commissioners questioned the size of the proposal, as well as its potential impact on the environment, traffic and Efland’s rural character and small, local businesses.
The commissioners asked the company to consider a smaller travel center with fewer gas pumps and a 24-foot sign that would meet county rules, instead of the 80-foot sign it proposed.
Stan Beard, director of real estate for Buc-ee’s, responded in a letter following a contentious public hearing that the company was withdrawing its application, because “Orange County is just not the right fit for Buc-ee’s.”
Orange County’s planning department has since approved an 886,240-square-foot light industrial and warehouse project — 85 Forty North Industrial Park — for 304 Mt. Willing Road in Efland.
The Mebane travel center, as proposed, would be 11,440 square feet larger and surrounded by farms and homes.
While Exit 152 generates the least amount of traffic among Mebane’s I-40/85 interchanges, it already has two older travel centers and is located close to N.C. 119, where traffic has exploded in the past several years with the construction of new homes and a new county high school, expected to open this year.
Buc-ee’s project documents said the travel center could open by 2025.
How Buc-ee’s got its name
Buc-ee’s founder Arch “Beaver” Aplin opened the first store in 1982 in Lake Jackson, Texas, and soon added a partner, vice president Don Wasek. The company’s name combines Aplin’s childhood nickname “Beaver” and the name of his Labrador retriever Buck.
Buc-ee’s now has 46 stores in Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and Florida.
The Alamance County store would be larger than Buc-ee’s largest, existing store in Sevierville, Tennessee. At 74,000 square feet, that store, which just opened, now holds the record for the largest convenience store in the world.
Another store in Katy, Texas, holds the world record for the longest car wash at 255 feet.
The story will be updated.
This story was originally published June 29, 2023 at 1:59 PM.
